Congratulations to Dr. Vickie Alexander, founder of Healthy Black Families, on her 80^th Birthday, Feb. 26 and continued thanks for the institution you founded 10 years ago, https://healthyblackfam.org/

Asé for Dr. Paul Farmer, founder, Partners for Health, for his work in bringing medical help to our people throughout the Diaspora, especially Haiti. Visit. Donate. Support: https://www.pih.org/

Happy International Women’s History Month 2022, especially those pioneering risk-taking sistahs who stepped forward when no one else would.

ImagineJudge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. Hold that thought as the white power structure cracks and crumbles along a fissure Biden pried openwhen he stepped into office. Photo credit: “Wall Street Journal.”

Christine Saed, Presente!
January 22, 2022, Christine Saed made her transition. She was the librarian at the West Oakland library that had the longest tenure with the African American Celebration through Poetry (1991-2022). We honored her along with Al Young and bell hooks, Feb. 19, which would have been Christine’s 74th birthday. If you missed the event, which was lovely, here is a link to Facebook.com/wandaspicks

March 6, at the Oakland Museum of CA there will be a drop-in memorial in the Garden 2-5 p.m. PT

THE DROP IN MEMORIAL RECEPTION FOR CHRISTINE SAED WILL BE IN THE MUSEUM GARDENS OUTSIDE THE TOWN FARE CAFE on the first level.  Join us at the outside table with the POST IT BOARD FOR OUR EXPERIENCE(S) WITH CHRISTINE ( TINA).  All are invited to post individual and group memories so we may have a collective narrative to comfort each other while grieving about Christine on Sunday, March 6th from 2-5 pm PDT. The results will be gathered and shared later by email.   There will be a sign-in book as well for follow up.

However, all must check in at the admission kiosk on the first level at the entrance to both the museum and the cafe.  If you say you are going to the cafe and gardens, admission is free and you will need the special sticker.

Here are the details for the no-host refreshments at the Town Fare Cafe in the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA).  The ADMISSION TO THE TOWN FARE CAFE AND GARDENS OF THE OAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA ( OMCA) IS FREE with COVID PPE and proof of vaccinations.

Edmonia Lewis, Black Heritage 2022

This year’s Black History Stamp honors the sculptor, Mary Edmonia Lewis, “Wildfire,” (July 4, 1804-Sept. 17, 1907) who sculpted The Death of Cleopatra in marble for the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876 and in Chicago two years later. The two-ton sculpture never returned to Italy with its creator because Lewis couldn’t afford the shipping costs. It disappeared for 100 years. Located in the back room of a saloon, it now resides at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art (third floor in the Luce Foundation Center) along with many of her other notable busts.

Claudia Li writes in “Sartle”: “The post-Exhibition life of Cleopatra gets a little rocky, though.

[Too expensive to carry a two-ton marble [work, though well-received] back to Rome, Lewis placed it in a storage facility in Chicago. Somehow, it made its way to a saloon in 1892 and then into the hands of a notorious gambler and racehorse tycoon named “Blind John” Condon, who used it as the gravestone for his favorite horse, Cleopatra. (Image from https://digitalscholarship.cca.edu/cleopatra.html).

“Evidently, Condon found a lot in common between the real Cleopatra and the hooved one. With “Blind” as a nickname, though, you may find that practically everything has something in common.

“When the racetrack turned into a USPS service facility in the 1970s, Cleopatra traveled to a storage yard, where a fire inspector and his son’s Boy Scout troop rescued it and cleaned it. They also painted it white because at that time, white-washing was ok. “A biographer working on Edmonia Lewis’s life story sent out a query for Lewis’s last known sculpture and, after visiting Cleopatra in a local shopping mall, knew she’d found it. . . .”

She was the first Black woman to make her livelihood from plastic arts. Born free in Upstate New York, she grew up in New Jersey with her mother’s people and lived most of her life in Rome, Italy. In her work “’Forever Free’ [which] is a celebration of black liberation, salvation, and redemption, and represents the emancipation of African-American slaves. Lewis attempted to break stereotypes of African-American women with this sculpture’” (Wikipedia). In Dakar for the Festival of African and African Diaspora Culture (FESMAN) 2010, “The African Renaissance Monument,” was unveiled that resembles Lewis’s celebration of Black liberation.  

I listened to a really delightful “Finding Cleopatra” podcast on Sidedoor (12/19/2019) which retells the story like a whodunit. A young Ms. Lewis suffered racial and sexual assault at Oberlin College, one of the only institutions that allowed women and people of African descent to attend with the dominant male student body. She did not let this deter her, especially when she was assaulted by dominant culture Oberlin students and falsely accused by others of attempted murder (which she was acquitted).

Print out this comic for a young person to read about this remarkable woman of paternal Haitian and maternal Mississauga Ojibwe heritage.

Wombfulness Gathering Reflection on the First Anniversary – Still Distancing and Sheltering in Place

As the borders between us open wide, I stay within, closed to too much exposure. Carefully I peek into rooms crowded with humanity and retreat. It is the gift of literature; art I enjoy in solitude that feeds a hunger that comes with famine. I may never be able to touch strangers, fly to distant countries, sit in live theatre productions, attend a dance class or walk through an art show.

I remember my last such events as doors shut tightly behind me as I squeezed though. I am so happy I have books to read. Ancestors walk with me—Sojourner Truth, Mrs. Jarena Lee, Harriet Wilson, Frances Harper, Anna Julia Cooper, Ph.D.,  Della Reese. . . Cicely Tyson.  These women share their stories in “Spiritual Narratives”, “Six Women Slave Narratives” and “Collective Black Women’s Narratives”, all from The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers (1988), edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ph.D.

March 2020, now March 2022. My grandson will be 1 in May. I remember May 2021. Diagnosed with endometrial cancer, June 1, I suddenly found myself in a new sorority — wombfulness. What is a female born person without her womb? Representative, clearly, we are not the sum of our parts, rather we are more than our collective organ function or dysfunction. The tendency to commodify is so easy in a society that parses, slices and distributes, values and devalues by sex in the context of Black Gaia.

After major surgery late July 2021 which removed the diseased womb and her girls to check for cancer cells—none found, I walk through shadow, put out my hands to locate something tangible or solid on the other side. . . it is illusive steel—hard to fathom, yet, I keep walking. I keep walking. It is the movement that connects me to a larger self, “wombfulness gathered.” A collective space I hadn’t known that opened for me March 2021 when I learned the California Department of Corrections had sterilized incarcerated women, just because it could.

Twenty years later, Kelli Dillion, lead plaintiff, heads the reparations movement for redress, which passed. She and other collaborating agencies which led to this decision are now instrumental in sharing this information with women who were so injured who are still alive. Her story is told in the film “Belly of the Beast” (POV).  It is a hero’s journey none should have to traverse. There are the roads less traveled and the road we are pushed into by powerful hands on throats, shackled wrists, ankles – legislation that does not protect all, especially the powerless and the more vulnerable, Black women, poor women, incarcerated women.  For these women, childbirth is not the time to argue, negotiate.

“Wombfulness Gatherings” One Year Anniversary, March 19, 2022 Program@ African American Center in San Francisco at the SF Main Library, 10-12 noon PT (Virtual)

---

MAAFA SF Bay Area launched “Wombfulness Gatherings” as a space for Black wom(b)en to share Gaia medicine, folk wisdom from our ancestors and resources for wellness and well-being. We danced, shared stories, read poetry, cried and held one another as some of us did yoni or vaginal streaming on new and full moons, did visioning activities and moved through the calcified into greater clarity. The presentations featured artists, elders from here and elsewhere America and in the Diaspora.

We have a Virtual Wombfulness Gathering, Sat., March 19, 10-12 noon at the SF Main Library, African American Center. It is our 1 Year Anniversary. The next session will start this fall, possibly in September. We are looking for institutional in-kind and financial support. It is hard to sustain a moment out of one’s pocket. Right now, the project is all volunteer. Sessions are free, however, donations are accepted.

Our pressenters at Wombfulness Gatherings 1 Year Anniversary:

At our March 19, 10-12 noon PT, program we feature conversations with Opal Palmer Adisa, Writer, Gender Specialist, and Cultural Activist, is​ ​the Former University Director of The Institute for Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies. Adisa believes that literature and the performance arts are the best approaches to interrogate gender inequality and formulate an approach to gender justice. A feminist/activist for four decades, Adisa has published 22 collections, that includes, essays, novels, short stories, poetry collections and children’s books. Her areas of focus are gender-based violence and ending child sexual and physical abuse.  

Arisika Razak, Berkeley, CA, has been a midwife, healer, and spiritual dancer for over forty years. Working as a nursemidwife, women’s health advocate and spiritual teacher in the 1980’s, her initial workshops and dances celebrated the power and sacredness of the female body and reflected her belief that we are all embodiments of the sacred, regardless of our sexual orientation, our dis/abilities, our sizes or our experiences. An Associate Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California from 2000 to the present, Arisika is a regular contributor to books, and journals; she presents at numerous conferences on the subjects of diversity, equity and inclusion and the spiritualties, creativity, and resilience of peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora. She is currently a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland California.

MAIMOUNATA (“Maï”) LINGANI, one of the most well-known & sought after recording artists of Burkina Faso, West Africa. and Marjé is a 25-year-old creative and rhythmic storyteller from Richmond, California. Using the colors and textures of psalms, she weaves together tales that tell the truth of her time as a brown reflection in a muddied river. In her youth, Marjé excelled in spoken word which alloted her the opportunity to compete nationally in the “Brave New Voices” poetry competition. She is remembered as the narrator in the commemorated play “Te’s Harmony” (2013) and later the award-winning documentary “Romeo Is Bleeding” (2015 film festival circuit) & (2017 Def Jam Digital + Netflix publication). In 2019, Marjé released her first musical production entitled “Pretty Brown, Brown”; In which she explored memories of summer-time-freedom in juxtaposition with her new reality as a college dropout

Marjé is a 25-year-old creative and rhythmic storyteller from Richmond, California. Using the colors and textures of psalms, she weaves together tales that tell the truth of her time as a brown reflection in a muddied river. In her youth, Marjé excelled in spoken word which alloted her the opportunity to compete nationally in the “Brave New Voices” poetry competition. She is remembered as the narrator in the commemorated play “Te’s Harmony” (2013) and later the award-winning documentary “Romeo Is Bleeding” (2015 film festival circuit) & (2017 Def Jam Digital + Netflix publication). In 2019, Marjé released her first musical production entitled “Pretty Brown, Brown”; In which she explored memories of summer-time-freedom in juxtaposition with her new reality as a college dropout. Ensuing her musical debut she began curating artistic events across the Bay Area including “The Art Walk” at the legendary Berkeley Flea Market. She’s had the honor of sharing her spoken word on the “Street Soldiers” radio show via 106 KMEL as well as a multitude of Bay Area hot spots. Most recently Marjé’s creative endeavors have also come to include “Two Sistas Sea Moss” a Coop business with sustainable health and wellness in mind. With each artistic development, she aims to awaken the Creator’s righteous children from the 400 year slumber they’ve come to know.

Facilitator, founder, Wombfulness Gatherings 2021-present

Wanda Sabir is a journalist (Wanda’s Picks), college professor, visual artist, Depth Psychologist, and poet who believes in the power of art to change and shape social movements as well as assist in trauma healing and memory reclamation work. Co-founder of Maafa San Francisco Bay Area, she launched in March 2021 “Wombfulness Gatherings.” She is the recipient of the Distinguished 400 Award, 400 Years of African American History Commission, US Dept. of the Interior.

TaSin Sabir: Balancing Creativity and Motherhood

Hot off the presses: “Big Kids Can. . . ” by TaSin Sabir

An Interview with Children’s Book Author, TaSin Sabir

I caught up with TaSin in a Zoom chat one evening late February 2022 for a conversation about her new book staring her sons, Big Kids Can. . .”.

TaSin Sabir uses her love of art to express topics that are important to her. TaSin graduated from California College of the Arts with a BFA in Photography. An Oakland native, TaSin’s artwork has been exhibited all around the Bay Area and Nation. TaSin has published two photography books: Madagascar Made and 100 Families Oakland. And her first children’s book: Big Kids Can (2022). Currently TaSin runs a Photography and Graphic Design business. tasinsabir.com

Wanda Sabir: Tell me about the inspiration for your book: “Big Kids Can. . .”.

TaSin Sabir: “I wanted to combine taking care of kids and doing an art project at the same time for myself. In a way I was documenting them as I made a list of various activities the kids and I participate in.
I took pictures of them brushing their teeth, playing with their blocks, eating breakfast and lunch, gardening.  Every other day when I had energy, I’d get them dressed and then we would do one of those activities and I will take a picture of them doing it.”

“At first I didn’t know how to incorporate Hero (the baby), but I took pictures of him too. My original idea was to try to get him to do some of these things too, but he was so small it was impossible. She laughs. “I had all these ideas written in my notebook ideas that might work with the little one.

“Once I had the pictures, I just had to lay it out. Then I looked at the pictures of Hero and his little expressions and I thought, Oh I can have him looking at his big brothers.  Lastly I worked on the ending.”

WS: What inspires you?

TS: “You can say I’m inspired by watching the boys learn from each other, copy each other and play with each other. Wise did that with Legend. He always wanted the copy everything Legend did. Even dangerous stuff like climbing really high on furniture when he so little. Now Hero is modeling himself behind his two big brothers. Trying to walk, play with big boy toy trucks. He’s really obsessed with his big brothers, you know?”

WS: “How many months did it take to move from idea to published book?”

TS: “I started taking pictures the end of July 2020, 6 months ago. I took pictures for about a month. I wanted to get the book out fast before they didn’t look like little kids anymore. In July Legend I made 5 and Wise turned two that fall and the baby was still not five months. My goal ultimately was to show them the book.

WS: Who’s your audience”

TS: “First the book is for them and people who know them. I love the book,” the proud mom says. “I don’t know if people want to see pictures of my children.” (Of course they do, the proud grandmother says.)

WS: It’s really nice. I like the promo video. Where’s that posted?

TS: “It’s on Instagram and Facebook.”

WS: The book is $10.00 US, soft cover.  Where can people purchase the book?

TS: “It’s all on Lulu’s bookstore. It’s a Drop Shipping place where you can self-publish. They always have sales. Just search for promo codes on the site, if I haven’t flagged one.

WS: I love the imprint LWH —

TS: “Yes that was their father, Shawn Lyles’s idea “The Legend of the Wise Hero.” It was going to be its own book, but I like the name so much I started my own publishing house and I’m going to use it everywhere.

TaSin says she is not sure if she’ll publish other authors; however, she has layed out books for others; however, she likes the challenge of figuring out things and after the logo she created she wanted the book to look professional.

WS: Please talk about the leap from being a fulltime artist, curator and designer to a fulltime mom.

TS: “I kind of feel like I need to create. Even though I don’t have as much time as I used to have, parenting has taught me how to be more decisive with my creations. I don’t have time to vacillate or be indecisive. I’m like, Oh this looks good, I’m done. I trust my instincts more, because I don’t have time to do multiple runs. I think I better designer now, because I’m more confident – I don’t have time to second-guess myself.

“I can think creative parenting teaches you how to multitask on your feet at a heightened whole crazy new level.

“Whatever I do, I like to do it well. It’s a lot of juggling. It’s not one or the other, I have to parent. I have to create. They always mesh, but it’s nice as with this book ‘Big Kids Can,’ it feels more geared towards me. Instead of thinking of creative ways to teach kindergarten, I have created a book while parenting.”

WS: You’re documenting the parenting creatively. You have make something tangible rather that facilitating an experience you can preserve and give to them years later.

The book freezes these precious moments the audience shares with you. The design itself is so pretty. The pages are filled with bright collage that bleeds across margins and off the edges. And the boys look life-like. How did you do that?

TS: “I used stock images with watercolor.

WS: I really like the gardening one and the painting one with the easel –Wise Deen has paint on his chin and his nose.

TS: “Children’s books are so bright and fun. I had to make it appealing.  I don’t think it would have been as exciting if I had the boys playing with blocks in my living room.”

WS: The boys look really happy in their photos brushing their teeth, cutting bananas, eating breakfast — Wise with all his toys around him.

Congratulations on your first children’s book I hope it flies off the shelf and you get all kinds of accolades and awards.

TS: “It’s always been a goal of mine to publish a children’s book. I feel really excited that it’s done. I have been thinking about doing a children’s book forever. Yeah it only took like 6 or 7-8 months.”

WS: Good, good I’m glad you got it off your bucket list.

Films
American Reckoning, a film by Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein, streaming on Frontline PBS

Before I watched “American Reckoning,” directed by Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein, I thought it was going to be another tragedy.  You know, Black victims and white saints and demons who flee into whiteness and get away dry bones in their wake.  I just wasn’t feeling yet another Maafa story, a story where Black people are killed and no one bleeds in return.  Whew, I should have known better given the track record of the creative team—Richen (The Killing of Breonna Taylor) and Lichtenstein (Ghosts of Attica). “The Reckoning” is a resistance story, a successful one, that unrolls like a crime mystery.  

True there is violence and death, but the folks in Natchez were not rolling over. They were fighting back. The story is also yet another American story that shows bad guys getting away and Black people without resolution.  Mumia Abu Jamal says in his book by the same title: Black life does not matter, never has.

American Reckoning, one film in a Frontline series, “Un(re)solved which looks at the cold cases from the Civil Rights Era which until Congressman John Lewis’s Emmett Till Act, which supports the investigation of these cases. Unfortunately, of the case investigated, there have been no successful prosecution. Only 21 remain un(re)solved of the 150 cases. In most cases, the killers have since died. No one, so far, is charged when in the Jackson case and others. We learn that in the Wharlest case, the guilty parties were well-known.

The Deacons of Defense feature prominently as does the brother of Medgar Evers, NAACP Field Secretary (July 2, 1925-June 12, 1963) who was killed in his Jackson, MS, driveway. Charles Evers (Sept. 11, 1922-July 22, 2020) plays a key role in the Natchez organizing. (He later becomes the first Black mayor of a Mississippi city, “Fayette” (1985-1989), since Reconstruction era.

George Metcalfe, NAACP President, who survives a car bombing, also features prominently in the compelling film. The Deacons show up with arms for the men who defend their communities. It is fascinating history many do not know, especially Black youth. The Natchez community uses boycotts and other effective strategies to economically bring the city to its knees. Those white businesses were closing their doors and so the mayor agrees to the ten demands, among the demands hiring Black police officers, hiring Black people for jobs formerly closed to them like supervisory positions in the auto factory. Conditions got a little better for the Black folks in town. Jackson applied for a job, previous reserved for white workers. He was supervising men who hated him. The raise just five cents, but it wasn’t about the money.

The KKK marched legally through town, their visual presence a terrorist act, nothing was done to protect Jackson— No one was shocked when one of these racists wired NAACP leader, Wharlest Jackson’s truck with explosives. Jackson was targeted precisely because he stood up. His bereaved wife and five children’s lives were destroyed, yet the family kept asking questions and pushing for resolution, if not, justice.

It is also crazy how the killer was known, yet for some reason he escaped prosecution.

It’s also crazy how the editor of the town’s newspaper told the offspring who killed their dad 40 years ago.

Wharlest Jackson was one of many righteous folks fighting for his freedom. He challenged the racial system and was killed because he took a job from a white man. The raise just five cents. The killer who wired his truck with explosives wanted to kill children and other innocents. Justice and Black people live on different blocks previously gentrified.

The film shares an important story that most of us don’t know. We need to learn this history: the lives taken by cowards whose lives were threatened by a people who decided to defend their community as they marched for civil rights. These were working people who cut hair, fixed cars, cooked meals and mopped floors. Wharlest Jackson had three jobs, not including cooking meals and combing hair when his wife got lupus.

Political rhetoric then and now continues to be a fiction, given the safe position racialized terror groups like the KKK have license to torment and kill and maim Black people without interference from Natchez law enforcement who institutes a curfew and calls in the national guard when Black people organize an economic boycott of all white owned stores when the mayor refuses to grant the community’s 10 demands following the explosion maiming

The use of economic sanctions is only highlighted in Montgomery. Everyone knows the year long boycott of mass transit. However, this successful Natchez story makes one wonder where else were similar strategies used. These Black men had guns. If they hadn’t, there would have been a different outcome.  Richen references the documentary, “Black Natchez” (1967) which aired on National Educational Television (predecessor to National Public Broadcasting). Directed by Ed Pincus and David Neuman. “If Black people had made this film, what would it have looked like? How would it have been different, if it would have been different? We weren’t given access, obviously, at that time to tell our own stories.”

This has changed, Black directors do have access, so American Reckoning is from a different perspective – historical and present, what unfolds is a truth coached in historic context. Wharlest Jackson’t children are adults when we visit Natchez with directors, yet the story has multiple chapters written almost daily. When will this assault on justice stop?

It’s great seeing Congressman Lewis and learn about the Emmett Till Act regarding civil rights era cold cases. Unfortunately, there is no justice: 150 cases, 21 left, no convictions. I had a great interview with the directors last month.  

To watch visit https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/american-reckoning/
(Read the interview online at wandaspicks.com)

Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America, directed by Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler
A Review and Interview by Wanda Sabir

In Jeffrey Robinson’s (Producer/Writer) “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America,” directed by Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler, audiences look at the birth of this nation and how 55 years after the Kerner Report, (July 1967), 156 years after first Civil Rights Bill – ratified April 9, 1866 just after the Civil War—followed by CRA March 1, 1875, CRA Sept. 9, 1957, CRA 1964 and CRA 1968, not much has changed for Black people in America. What makes this chronicle unique is the discussant’s life which anchors and centers a narrative that is surprising, not because we didn’t know it was so bad, but the facts that lend themselves to the tragedy.

Robinson states that his parents were unicorns and his childhood (and life) a fable or fairytale. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, he and his three siblings, grew up loved and protected. He says that he wasn’t the smartest kid in town; however, he was able to graduate from Harvard Law School and have a varied legal career as a public defender in Seattle where he represented indigent clients in state and federal court.

As litigant for the ACLU, Robinson was one of the original members of the John Adams Project where he worked on behalf of one of the five men held at Guantanamo Bay charged with carrying out the 9/11 attacks. Yet, when his wife’s sister died and her son, Matt (13), came to live with him and his wife, Robinson says: “What started out as a search in my attempt to help my nephew deal with the challenges of racism in America turned into an education I was not expecting.”

Part TED Talk with music, charts, statistics and video—part facts spliced with living examples of the phenomena, “Who We Are” is a “Racism 2022 Road Trip.” 

Emily Kunsler, director, handles an 11 passenger van with her daughter, sister, Sarah aboard, mother aboard; Robinson, of course and his wife, plus a few others. Between interviews, Robinson and company debrief (sometimes on camera). We witness Robinson unpacking some of the really hard moments.

The brilliant way the directors splice Robinson’s taped conversations with the in the moment interviews with mothers, like Gwen Carr (Eric Garner) and others family members who lost loved ones to state violence; families who are still grieving the killing of their brother, son, friend, husband—plus multiple survivors of racial terrorism and terrorist landmarks and monuments like the Lynching Tree in Charleston, SC; places like the Old Slave Mart Museum also in Charleston and monuments to civil war massacres and murderers. Such sites and testimony show these sites, sounds, stories from multiple perspectives as camera shifts from presenter to participant. We see Robinson shed tears and get angry as logic and bigotry refuse to share space.

This history lesson needs no popcorn. Not only will you stay in your seat, you will look for references to read later to understand more completely the discourse which moves too quickly to comprehend its magnitude. Most of what we know about American history is a cleaned up version of the founding story from Francis Scott Keys’ poem excerpted for the National Anthem to the polished lies and laws in documents like the Constitution of the United States that kept enslaved persons enslaved and ensured Black lives legally never matter.

Emily and Sarah Kunstler saw Robinson’s presentation and suggested the idea for a film. Reluctant at first, the trust grew over the 12 years or so it took to bring the project to completion. As Robinson traveled the country with his presentation, he spoke to other citizens about human rights. The interviews, as mentioned, are interspersed with the presentation. Like a dance, the live and scripted conversations woven together show the complex nature of racism in American.

From Mother Lessie Benningfield Randle, born in 1914, one of the last remaining survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 to Dr. Tiffany Crutcher, activist and twin sister of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed 40-year-old man who was shot and killed in Tulsa, when his car stalled on a city street, to Senator Henry “Hank” Sanders and his wife Faya Ora Rose Touré discussion of a name change for the bridge names after a Grand Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan: Edmund Pettis Bridge to Freedom Bridge.

Tami Sawyer, a Memphis County Commissioner and political activist looks tired when the two confederate monuments finally come down. She says she is tired because, “We had to fight so hard. I had friends who went to jail for this, a woman was killed for this. [While this] statue came down . . . almost another 1000 stand across the country. People are working harder to protect them, [yet they] tell us that ‘we are wrong’ or ‘attention seekers’ than they are to reconcile and get to a point of truth and understanding about who these people were.”

Robinson states that all the Confederate monuments and memorials were built in the twentieth century. He says these men are honored for their bloodshed, not for any particularly honorable act. These monuments are built for men who upheld the rights of the enslavers and killed those in the war who fought against these rights.

Dr. King’s killing and that of Larry Payne (Robinson’s peer) who was killed with a shotgun blast to the chest (at close range) by a Memphis police officer during the 1968 sanitation workers strike opens the story. The officer never faced charges and Ms. Carolyn Payne, his sister’s family have never received an apology from the City of Memphis.

The stories are true and painful, especially when juxtaposed with the racial epithet running like supertitles across the narrative of this nation no matter who is in office—Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., even Barack Obama. All have blood on their hands.

In a recent interview, I spoke to Robinson and the directors about the film, which is opening opened throughout the nation in February. “Who We Are in America” is now a project with a mission to give space to documenting these stories so that there is an historic record. Here is a link to the “We Are America Project:” https://www.weareamericaproject.com/ The film is released on Sony Classics. Read the interview on wandaspicks.com.

Alameda Island Poets, 1st Wednesday Poetry Reading, 7-9 PM PT

Alameda Poet Laureate, Kimi Sugioka. Our “famously friendly” open mic follows features.  All are welcome.  Please RSVP to this email.peace, passion, and poetry, Cathy Dana, President, Alameda Island PoetsAlameda Poet Laureate Emerita

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88484893144?pwd=anRqZStWcXpNNlVhRHpmaFp3SnloZz09
Meeting ID: 884 8489 3144
Passcode: poetry

Avotcja is an award-winning poet, playwright, multi-percussionist, photographer and teacher. She has been published in English & Spanish in the USA, Mexico & Europe. She is also a popular Bay Area DJ & Radio Personality & leader of the group “Avotcja & Modúpue” (The Bay Area Blues Society’s Jazz Group Of The Year in 2005 & 2010). Avotcja teaches Creative Writing & Drama & is a proud member of DAMO (Disability Advocates Of Minorities Org.), PEN Oakland, California Poets In The Schools, Local 1000 American Federation of Musicians and is an ASCAP recording artist.

Born and raised in the Philippines, Elizabeth Peláez Norris has been a long time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area.  She holds Master’s degrees in Spanish and Education.  She retired from a 40 year career in teaching, 35 of which were at St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda where she taught Spanish and English.  In 1991, she founded and served as adviser to PRISMS, the school’s award-winning literary/art magazine for 26 years.  Her first collection of poetry, Inner Voices, received Artist Embassy International’s Literary Cultural Award in 2010.     Echoes of Inner Voices is her second collection of poetry. Her poems echo her themes devoted to poetry itself, nature, the forgotten, memory, whimsy,  heart and spirit.  They  range from the serious and reflective to the playful and amusing. Like the spectrum of light refracted through a prism, her poetry varies in color from bright to tenebrous, a rainbow to enjoy beside a quiet window.   Both books are available from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.   

Brookings Institure: The Commission of the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, Mon., March 14, 2022, 12-1:15 PM, ET

A conversation on the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys Monday, March 14, 2022, 12:00 – 1:15 p.m. EDT  Online: https://www.brookings.edu/events/commission-on-the-social-status-of-black-boys-and-men/

RSVP to watch

Momentum is building to address the most severe and pervasive problems facing Black people in America, due in large part to the disproportional impact of the pandemic on Black communities and widespread racialized violence. Black boys and men, in particular, run the gauntlet of a specific brand of racism, at the sharp intersection of race and gender. The result is a longstanding pattern of poor intergenerational outcomes for them. The unique challenges facing Black boys and men require a specific set of policy responses, from the earliest days of life through adulthood. In August 2020, President Trump signed bipartisan legislation to create the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, a 19-member council tasked with studying the social status of Black men and boys and recommending policy solutions. Now that commission members have been appointed and have convened twice, what exactly is the role of a congressional commission, and what should President Biden and the commission focus their energy on? On Monday, March 14, experts, members of Congress, and members of the commission will discuss the unique role of the newly established commission. Viewers can submit questions for speakers by emailing events@brookings.edu or via Twitter using #BlackMenandBoysCommission.   IntroductionRichard Reeves, John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair, Senior Fellow and Director, Future of the Middle Class Initiative, Brookings | @RichardvReeves  RemarksThe Hon. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), U.S. Senate | @marcorubio   RemarksThe Hon. Frederica F. Wilson (D-Fla.), U.S. House of Representatives | @RepWilson Panel discussion Camille Busette, Senior Fellow and Director, Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative | @CamilleBusette Joseph Marshall, Founder and Executive Director, Alive & Free | @AliveAndFreeRX Ian Rowe, Resident Fellow, Domestic Policy Studies, AEI | @ianvrowe Marvin Williams, Program Manager, Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys Moderator: Rashawn Ray, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings | @SociologistRay